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I tell you that every European who reads this story is muttering to themselves: "Hunh? But that's crazy!". The story being the decision of one of the winners of the recent vast prize opting to take his money as a lump sum now, in order to avoid future taxes after the fiscal cliff:

He is entitled to $293 million (£183 million) for his share of a $588 million (£366 million) Powerball jackpot - but opted to take a cash option of $192 million (£120 million) now, to avoid the looming US "fiscal cliff".

Across-the-board tax hikes and sharp spending cuts scheduled for January 1 in the US are likely to mean a higher rate of income tax for the most wealthy.

No, it's not the size of the prize that seems crazed. There's a similar pan-European lottery which has prizes of the same sort of size. Certainly there have been recent winners of a couple of hundred million euro jackpots. So it's not that.

And it's not really the idea that he's got to take a discount to have the cash now. Not many people realise this over here, but it doesn't sound absurd once it's explained. US lottery prizes are typically paid out year by year over 20 years. European ones typically are one large check when you get the whole prize awarded. Once this is explained then most can see that there is an option between the two and sometimes the wise decision will go one way, sometimes another.

No, what will have Europeans flapping their gums in amazement is the idea of taxes on lottery winnings. Certainly in the UK, and in the couple of other European countries I know about, such winnings are tax free. Indeed, the winnings from all games of chance and forms of betting are tax free. That's what would astonish: that the various governments that run the lottery would have the effrontery to both make a profit from running it and then also to levy taxes on the prizes.

One question you might be able to answer for me. If the winnings from a lottery in the US are taxable, then obviously the purchase of tickets is tax deductible, right? They are at least playing straight about this, aren't they?